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Thursday, March 4, 2010

ICC Moonkin Raiding Gear: Now with Hard Modes

PLEASE NOTE: This list WILL NOT be updated for 4.0.1. That would require a lot of work and isn't really worth it for a 1 or 2 month period where most people don't care about raiding anyway. That said all the links should update when WoWhead converts only so It is a good source to see what is available. Just avoid the cloth.

Arthas and the Hard Modes have been available for a couple of weeks and I need to stop being slack. Here is the updated list that should take us to Cataclysm. Please read over the sections below before looking at the lists. The comments I make here should answer a lot of the questions you may have.

Special Thanks:Once again Cowtarus on Stormscale-US helped me out in producing this list. He did all of the data entry for the new instances saving me a lot of time and sanity. So if you appreciate the existence of this list please send him thanks as well. I know I appreciate it.

Format Changes:Once again, I’ve had to make some changes in how I build the list.

Names: The list will only include the Alliance names for the ToC gear. I apologize if anyone has a huge problem with that, but you’re going to have to deal with it. I will not be producing a separate Horde list. At this point in time you should already know what gear you want out of ToC and ToGC. If you don’t, the old lists should be ok for helping you find the available gear.

Purges: No one seemed to object to my purges last time, and no one gave me any reason to keep the Ulduar gear. Therefore, I am dropping it from this list as well as all 5man gear. ToC is easily pugable, therefore I doubt anyone is doing major progression in Ulduar. If you would like to see rankings from earlier instances please look at my earlier lists.

There are a couple of exceptions that I still included despite falling into one of that categories above. I think all of the exceptions were trinkets.

A few comments:

This list is a tool, not a blue print for how to gear. I’ve never intended these lists to be the definitive guide on how to gear a raiding moonkin. I don’t want to see any comments anywhere that say “item X is the best because it’s ranked number one on Graylo’s list.”

The use of this list requires some thought. It is a general ranking intended to give you an idea on how items relate to each other.

Please realize that these values are estimates based upon my gear level. Two items with a similar value, can be assumed to be relatively equal. Also, realize that if you are at a different gear level then me, you may value the stats differently. I highly suggest you look at this post to determine how you value stats and weigh your options accordingly.

It is up to you to manage your Hit, Haste, and Crit caps. Do not take every number one item on the list.

These rankings are purely based upon DPS. Yes, Stamina and mana regen have value, but there is no way to directly translate them into DPS. By the same token Intelligence and Spirit have both mana and DPS benefits, but only the DPS is considered.

Procs are particularly hard to quantify. Trinkets and other items that have procs or on use abilities are estimated in the list. However, it is likely that some of them are wrong given that we know very little about some of the procs. I will update them if I can, but I make no guarentees.

Assumptions:

To rank these items I used the following weights Hit Rating - 2.103, Spell Power - 1, Haste Rating - 0.6748, Crit Rating - 0.6014. To be completely honest, I struggled a little with what weights to use for this guide. In the end I went with what SimulationCraft spit out for me. It assumes you are over both the haste cap and the crit cap, and a gear level around a full set of 264 ilevel.

A Comment on Going Off Set:We all know that the primary reason for using our Tier Sets in the past has been for the set bonuses. They have always been good enough for us to ignore poor itemization. However, you only need 4 peices to complete the set. So, in the past we have always been able to pick a slot that is poorly itemized and find a better itemized not tier piece to up grade our gear but still have the Tier bonuses.

I don't think this situation holds for ICC. It depended on some of our gear to be poorly itemized, but the entire T10 gear set is very well itemized. Finding an upgrade out side of the tier set is much more difficult this time around. Most people say that they want to drop one of the hit pieces for something without hit, but even then you're causing yourself to lose DPS stats some where else. In the end, I'm infavor of using all 5 tier pieces, because the gain for going off set in tier 10 is very small if it exists at all. That is just my opinion though.

There will be some debate on what is best from this slot. As I said before I prefer the Tier pieces. If you are able to get the Heroic legs and are a Night Elf then this gives you a really easy way to get hit capped. Even if you can only get the 264 ilevel set, Night Elfs can easily hit cap with a couple of Vieled gems. Others will say that the Crafted legs are best, because they are very well itemized. However, they do not have a heroic equivalent, and it forces you to pick up the hit else where.

There really aren't any good bracers in ICC, and that is one of the arguements for going offset at the leg slot. All of the caster bracers have either Spirit or Hit rating on them. I wasn't able to come up with a good set to get close to the hit cap with hit bracers and dropping the Tier legs, so I am sticking with spirit. The Bracers of Eternal Dreaming are your best bet if you go with spirit. The Death Surgeon's Sleeves have the exact same itemization but are cloth, therefore, I would pass them to any cloth who wants them before I would take them.

The Belt of Petrified Ivy is because you can buy it with Emblems. However, it does not have a heroic version, and the Crushing Coldwraith Belt drops off of Marrowgar. If you have access to Hard modes then the Marrowgar belt will be best in slot if you can roll on cloth.

The Plague Scientist's Boots are the best boots available, but Boots of Unnatural Growth and Boots of the Frozen Seed are ver nice as well. You will ultimately want the cloth boots, but keep an eye out for the leather ones because they are likely easier to get.

Cloaks have been very hard to obtain in WotLK. ICC does provide some very nice options and the ToGC tribute cloaks are still very nice if you have one. My guess is that we will see a lot of people wearing Volde's Cloak of the Night Sky since it is purchasable with emblems.

Blood Queen's Crimson Choker is clearly the best option. Plus, it's even BoE so you may be able to find it on your Auction House but I wouldn't expect it. It is clearly the best in slot neck for a lot of classes, and there will be a fight for it. If you’re running the 10mans, the Soulcleave Pendant is very nice, or you may want to consider picking up one of the multiple spirit necks if you can do so cheaply.

To be completely honest, I don't really know what to tell you about trinkets. Up until a couple of weeks ago I was sure DFO was horrible for moonkin, and that the Reign Trinkets were remain the best trinkets available. The numbers above indicate that might be true, and I am not entirely confident in them. All that said, I have an idea for a post on trinkets that will likely change this ranking to some degree.

# The value of the Onyxia trinkets is the value of the set divided by 2. If you do not have the set, these trinkets are virtually worthless in terms of DPS. On top of that I don't have any hard numbers on the damage proc. I assumed the DoT has a 25% uptime.

I feel like half of this choice was made for us with the introduction of the Rep rings. It sucks to some extent because I hate having to pick up Hit or Mp5, but it is also clear that these rings are pretty awesome. They have a gem socket, an awesome proc, and they are relatively easy to get.

For the second ring it’s pretty clear that the Ring of Rapid Ascent is the best choice. It’s the only ring without Spirit or Hit rating on it.

A MH/OH combo is clearly a better choice if you have access to Arthas weapons. Therefore, going after the Shadow Silk Spindle should be a priority. However, a case can be made for Nibelung, and you may be dening a great offhand to another raider without upgrading yourself much. Be careful how you make this choice.

The Arthas weapons are awesome, but that fight is not a push over. Expect a lot of competition. The Frozen Bonespike is the only good MH option that doesn't drop off of Arthas if you are ignoring the staff options.

Obviously the Arthas staff is great, but it is difficult to get. We all know that most of the staff debate will center around Nibelung.

Let me put this up front. I am pro-Nibelung, but it is really hard to accurately model. The Val'kyr put out significant damage, but there will always be a little debate about their survivability. I haven't had a big problem with them dying. Their healing mechanic will even keep them up during BQL, but they are stupid. They will stand in fires and die. Therefore, eventhough the simulations say it is an upgrade for me, I have a hard time trusting them entirely.

That said, here is why I like Nibelung. Due to our scaling issues, Moonkin is just about the only spec that Nibelung is good for. Simulations say that it is it is at least equal to MH/OH combos of a similar item level. This means that we can get a decent weapon that no one else will want for very cheap. It's not ideal in the long run, but the other options will be significantly more difficult to obtain.

Relic/Idol:At this point you should only be thinking about two idols. The [Idol of Lunar Eclipse] is the best and it is purchasable with Emblems of Frost. However, you may be saving your Emblems for your Tier Set or another item. In such a case you should at least have the [Idol of Lunar Fury]. It is purchase able with Emblems of Triumph. Since it is incredibly easy to farm EoTs at the moment, using anything less then the Idol of Lunar Fury is pretty stupid.

Notes:Once again, as you can see there are a lot of links and values in this post. It is quite possible that some of them are incorrect. If you find an incorrect link or a valuation just doesn't look right, please let me know so that I can correct it.

Wowhead is currently incorrect. Both maces had the mp5 changed into haste to better suit ele/boomkin/shadowpriest players, who were more or less shafted by LK drops.

Also, on that note, the haste values might be off. Since wowhead has yet to update the values, i had to guess at what the actual values of haste were, based off other weapons. Thus, the data might be off slightly, but not enough to make the weapon drop in rank.

I know the discussion's not done yet but it sounds like with the starfall changes and the possible glyphing decisions that may result we "may" drop MF from our "active" rotation which could allow us to better use an additional 2-3% crit on our gear as a result. Would some of the more crit heavy gear move up the list?

I'm very curious about haste rating.. I'm currently over the soft haste cap but under the crit cap (928 crit rating.. I think I need about 100 more, no?). I've won the Maghari Cheiftan staff (saurfang10), but am currently using a lower ilvl 1 hand that doesn't have as much haste, and also has hit in order to push me towards the crit cap.

At this point I'm trying my best to get to the crit cap at the expense of perhaps unfavorable itemization just to make my gear selection easier.

Dusk your Lunar crit cap is kinda odd, best bet is to use something like wrath calcs to calculate it. It will tell you the exact rating, like in my gear based on my int etc my cap is something like 922 crit rating. Monatoco, Shandris US

Thanks for the post, I've been in the mix of swapping some of this gear for the past 2 weeks in heroic 10 man and 25 man normal. I personally can't wait till you get some new information with the trinket section. I've done some math myself, and at my current stats, the Reigns have dropped tremendously. I still use one however, just been very confusing the past 3 weeks in deciding this trinket topic.

And as a side note, thanks for all the time and effort you put into this blog and helping others, it helped me much getting started when I switched mains to a boomkin, and it's payed off quite a bit.

Thanks for the post, I've been in the mix of swapping some of this gear for the past 2 weeks in heroic 10 man and 25 man normal. I personally can't wait till you get some new information with the trinket section. I've done some math myself, and at my current stats, the Reigns have dropped tremendously. I still use one however, just been very confusing the past 3 weeks in deciding this trinket topic.

And as a side note, thanks for all the time and effort you put into this blog and helping others, it helped me much getting started when I switched mains to a boomkin, and it's payed off quite a bit.

A note about nibelung: the valkyrs, to the best of my knowledge, do not scale with the ICC +% buff, and therefore, as that buff gets stronger, the nibelung will fall further and further behind (in ICC only)

I was wondering if there was a way you could plug some of the 2200 rating pvp weapons into your list. If not I would understand and I could probably use your values and do the math myself, I'm just worried I would mess something up lol

I would like to talk about the game World of War craft. It is a very sensational game. We will be freezed while playing this game. I use to review many guides for playing those games. I reviewed Leveling Guide for that game.

Could you please include the Spirit and Int coeffecients you used for your computations? You list what you used for Spell Power, Hit, Crit and Haste, but not Intelligence and Spirit. I know they aren't nearly as important, but you seem to use them in your computations, and they do increase damage a bit.

Hi Graylo,Was just checking over the list, helms to be specific (little guild kerfuffle with Restos rolling OS on leather helms with spirit for Moonkin set)Noticed that in the list you have "Helm of the Elder Moon" listed as superior to "Corp'rethar Ceremonial Crown", then for the Heroic versions, you have the Corp'rethar H listed as better than the Elder Moon Helm

I'm not sure if this will change anything for trinkets, but I'm currently using the Talisman of Volatile Power (H) *Note, this applies to the regular version as well*, but with the buff to Starfall, and the surge of moonkins glyphing for the lesser SF cooldown, you can pop the trinket every other starfall. The trinket is broken for moonkins and will gain a stack every time starfall hits a target (on bosses, along with casting, you have all 8 stacks in a couple seconds, instant 8 with 3+ targets to hit), which I have found incredibally useful. I typically time it so I can use that during heroism, right after I get a lunar eclipse, and pop my potion of speed as well, making my starfire close to a 1 second cast during that time.

Also, the Arthas Staff is listed as (H) both times, when the one that is lower on the list is the non-heroic version.

If you could give me your opinion on the talisman with this considered, I would be greatly appreciative!

(At the moment, the trinkets I use are the Muradin's spyglass (N), and Talisman (H). I also have an Eye of the broodmother in my bank. I don't have access to many other trinks, as my boomkin is now my guild alt.)

thanks for all the hard work putting these lists together, they've been extremely helpful over the past year or so........I know you're probably a busy person and all, just hoping you can throw up those ruby sanctum items on here whenever you get a chance, thanks again! :)

Love your list Graylo - I have 4 T10 fully Santified items but at the cost of other items such as the Sanctified Gloves instead of the Gloves of the Great Horned Owl I also have the Leather of Stitched Scourge Parts but I'm equipping Sanctified Lasherweave Trousers. Is the lost of some DPS per item weighed up by the T10 4 set bonus of 7% extra damage per Crit from Moonfire and Starfire or should I forego Languish for the superior dps on the othe items?